1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a powder supplying device including a powder container that is removably installable to a main unit of an image forming apparatus to supply powdered toner that is consumed in an image forming process. The powder supplying device is incorporated in an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, a facsimile machine, a plotter, a multi-function machine, and the like.
2. Discussion of the Background
In general, electrophotographic image forming apparatuses such as copiers, printers, facsimile machines, plotters, multi-function machines including at least two of these functions, or the like include both a development device to develop latent images formed on an image carrier and a toner supplying device to supply toner to the development device from a replaceable toner container.
Certain related-art image forming apparatuses use cylindrical toner containers (toner bottles), in which a discharge port is formed to discharge the toner and a shutter is provided to close the discharge port. More specifically, in one known configuration, a toner bottle (toner cartridge) includes a shutter and a rail. When the toner bottle is rotated after the toner bottle is inserted into a powder supplying device, the shutter is opened by hooking the rail onto a groove provided in the powder supplying device.
However, in the above-described known configuration, the toner container can move (rotate) only enough to open and close the shutter. The problem is that this limited range of movement also makes it difficult to set the toner container to the powder supplying device. In addition, it might be difficult for users to know whether the toner container is properly set to the powder supplying device. Moreover, because the rail (shutter control member) is provided in the toner bottle, the sizes of the toner bottle and the toner supplying device are increased, which is not desirable.
Accordingly, there is a need to improve usability of the toner containers and to make the toner bottle more compact.